Dunkerque Population and Area (Nord)
Largest city in France 2026: up-to-date figures for Dunkerque (Nord)
Dunkerque: Population and Area
With 87,442 inhabitants (INSEE total population in force on January 1, 2026), Dunkerque is the 54th most populous town in France in 2026 and the 4th most populous in the Nord department, out of 647 communes. It covers 44 km² (1,645th largest area in France, 3rd largest in the department), with a population density of 1,992 inhabitants per km², or 18 times the national average (110 inhabitants/km²), which ranks it 452nd in France for density.
Dunkerque is located in the Nord department (59), in the Hauts-de-France region (formerly Nord-Pas-de-Calais), where it ranks 5th by population out of 3,782 communes. The most populous town in the Nord department is Lille (240,109 inhabitants); the department is home to 2,645,946 people over 5,743 km².
See the full ranking of communes in the Nord department and the regional ranking: largest city in Hauts-de-France.
Towns of similar size in the Nord department: Lille (pop. 240,109), Tourcoing (pop. 99,346), Roubaix (pop. 98,701), Villeneuve-d'Ascq (pop. 63,462), Valenciennes (pop. 43,966), Douai (pop. 41,108).
Sources: INSEE, official population figures in force on January 1, 2026 (total population); areas: IGN / Observatoire des territoires; INSEE code 59183. Rankings are calculated across the 34,858 communes of metropolitan and overseas France in our database.
Dunkerque, a large city born of mergers
A subprefecture of the Nord, Dunkerque owes a good part of its present size to the expansion of its territory: in the 1970s, the city absorbed Malo-les-Bains, Rosendaël and Petite-Synthe, then, in 2010, Saint-Pol-sur-Mer and Fort-Mardyck. The commune thus stretches from the North Sea beaches to the port and industrial zones in the west.
The port and industry
The fourth-largest town in the Nord after Lille, Tourcoing and Roubaix, Dunkerque lives to the rhythm of its port, one of the largest in France, and of the steel industry set up on the coast after the war. Largely destroyed in 1940 during Operation Dynamo, which made possible the evacuation of more than 300,000 Allied soldiers, the city was rebuilt in the 1950s. It is also known for its carnival, one of the most popular in France, which sets the pace of life across the whole urban area every winter.